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Today I found issue 115 in my local gaming shop when I went there to meet with a few fellow DMs before we went off to run our campaigns. So a few of us decided to buy it and check it out (silly store owner won't let us read the magazines without paying...imagine that!). After a few of us went through it I decided that I would share the group’s opinions on the issue.
THE GOOD & THE NEUTRAL:
Once again we loved the DMing columns. Monte Cook's "Dungeoncraft" was wonderful as were most of the others. I didn't have too much problem with "Wil Save" but a good number of the others (and I see where they are coming from) didn't feel like it added to the magazine as a whole. They included three adventures just like promised, so fans of low and mid-level adventures will be happy. The high level adventure is another "Shackled City" installment (more on that later). Lovers of Eberron rejoice because there is (another) Eberron adventure for you. From the advertisements in the magazine it appears there is now a reader survey we can take on the Paizo website. It’s not yet up but that sounds very fun. It also appears that they listened to us on some aspects as it now appears they give visual descriptions (not just stats) to creatures that appear outside of the core Monster Manual.
THE PROBLEMS:
First and foremost was once again the cover and title looking ugly but those things will never stop us from buying the magazine. Since most of us are running the "Shackled City" Adventure Path most of the criticism we have pertains to the installment in this issue.
Once again it still appears that the path peaked at "Foundation of Flame" as "Strike on Shatterhorn" seems to contain some of the same problems "Thirteen Cages" did. The most glaring problem once again is the total lack of set-up for the adventure. Chapter 1 immediately starts the party in on the dungeon crawl without answering the question "Why are we here?” However, the answer to this question comes remarkably in the...adventure synopsis??? Apparently the adventure synopsis no longer summarizes what the party will do but rather gives a paragraph of how the party got to this dungeon. Once again it appears Jenya got another divination that points the party to exactly where they need to go. Gone are the awesome riddles from that artifact in the St. Cuthbert vault and the need for the PCs to investigate in order to find the dungeon. For a comparison of what we mean I'll give a few examples from some of the past installments.
Life's Bazaar- Chapter 1: Party saves a cleric of St. Cuthbert from a beat down and is eventually given the task of investigating kidnappings long before they enter a dungeon.
Zenith Trajectory- Chapter 1: Party fights a fiendish umber hulk and attracts the attention of Celeste who can help them get an inside position on Cauldron's nobility. Combat, intrigue, no dungeon.
The Demonskar Legacy- Chapter 1: Party must deal with a riot and save/kill Maavu. Depending on their actions they could potentially make allies with the Chisel. Subdual and tactical combat, role-playing, intrigue, no dungeon.
Foundation of Flame- Chapter 1: Party attends a meeting with Cauldron nobles and could potentially choose who runs the city in the future. At the end they fight a small group of cagewright lackeys. Combat, mostly role-playing, no dungeon.
Thirteen Cages- Chapter 1: Party receives a monologue from Jenya.
Strike on Shatterhorn- Chapter 1: Party finds Shatterhorn and enters the dungeon. I'm not joking, that’s how the first chapter opens.
The adventure is also seriously missing a good hook. The PCs soundly defeated a nice number of Cagewrights in "Thirteen Cages" and destroyed/disabled the Tree of Shackled Souls. So why are they worried about the remaining Cagewrights. Oh no, they have ANOTHER way to open the gate to Carceri. Why didn't they use that way in the first place?? I can just see my PCs (a good group of adventurers) telling Jenya to go handle the remainder herself if she knows where they are. Now luckily the adventure ends on a note which says that the PCs will have some downtime. This gives the next installment the chance to allow for another investigation role-playing Chapter 1 to be set up.
So yeah, this post got negative real fast but I do not want to try to kill the adventure path. I hope that the aspects that my friends and I mentioned brings attention to them. High level players want more then dungeon crawl and slash and burn, there is no reason why they did more role-playing at lower levels and almost no chance for it at higher levels.
-Sean of New Jersey :)
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Hey Sean!
Thanx for the review! I will buy issue #115 anyway but it helps a little bit if you already know where the weaker points are...
You're are right with your opinions about the adventure path, but hey - I NEVER bought or even heard of a module/official adventure which is absolutely perfect! At least gone are the times, where I always wondered where some of the npcs got their values from (especially in 2E)...
Anyway, Paizos website is great in sharing opinions about Dungeon (especially for me here in germany, where I am the only one of my friends reading Dragon and Dungeon regularly).
The new installment of Cauldron will work as well, even if it's AGAIN with a lot of work for the DM. However, I am happy, that we have the adventure path and I am looking forward for the next one!
The problem with Strike on Shatterhorn night be, that (as far as I know) Paizo divided the last part of the series, because it would be too big for one issue. Maybe the hook got lost in the process of dividing it... juts a thought!
Sean, thanks for the review. Could you share a bit more about what you thought of "Stike on Shatterhorn" if you don't mind? How are the remaining Cagewrights portrayed? Are Mhad or the Order of the Silver Dream mentioned? Are there more considerations for characters with the Sign of the Smoking Eye template as there were in "Thirteen Cages"? Despite not having a good hook or set-up, what did you think of the remainder of the adventure?
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Sean, thanks for the review. Could you share a bit more about what you thought of "Stike on Shatterhorn" if you don't mind? How are the remaining Cagewrights portrayed? Are Mhad or the Order of the Silver Dream mentioned? Are there more considerations for characters with the Sign of the Smoking Eye template as there were in "Thirteen Cages"? Despite not having a good hook or set-up, what did you think of the remainder of the adventure?
The remaining Cagewrights are portrayed much better and actually have much better tactics. One of them uses a familiar to guard the only way into the dungeon and has basically a 100% of alerting the entire complex. Many of them have a number of escape plans and a rally point where the PCs might have to deal with all 5 of them. It seems at this point that PCs have killed all but one of the MAJOR Cagewrights. The mercenaries and small army of demodands seems to have been depleated as there are very few people besides them guarding Shatterhorn. This actually makes a lot of sense and I'm happy that they did it this way as I would think that most of their forces would have been at Cauldron's base and destroyed by now.
Mhad is mentioned in this installment but only if she survive "Lords of Oblivion". In fact any surviors the PCs did not take care of completely are waiting here. Lady Rhivadi, even Vhalantru could be waiting here for the final showdown. Believe when I say that the dungeon itself is very strong and I would easily run it as it is presented. I was just hoping for a better opening to it.
People with the sign of the smoking eye will be targetted ALOT in this module. Many of the remaining Cagewrights are friggin insane and have been seriously screwed up by contacting the insane Adimarchus. As I read it they will almost always target someone with the smoking eye template as they are a competitor to their lords retaking of Occipitus.
**SUPER SPOILER**
The final encounter is an awesome cliff-hanger possibly causing one of the PC's bodies being taken over by Embril herself and being taken to the prison of the big A himself for the last installment.
Creative Director
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The problem with the last few installments of the Shackled City Adventure Path is that the last few adventrues ended up being well over 30,000 words each. Rather than cut these last two adventures in half and lose a lot of fun encounters, we instead split these two adventrues in half over the course of four issues.
In a way, you can think of "Foundation of Flame," "Thirteen Cages," and "Strike on Shatterhorn" as one huge adventure split into three parts. The 2nd two parts unfortunately (in hindsight) rely too much on the previous adventure.
"Asylum" (the last Shackled City adventure path installment, due to appear in #116) has its own hooks, with a few "setup" encounters before things get going.
One of the things we've learned from this at Dungeon is that we need adventrue hooks in every adventure. When we get Adventure Path 2 going, we'll be including numerous adventure hooks for each adventure.
Thanks Sean and James. My party includes a paladin of St. Cuthbert who has the Smoking Eye template and he has been seriously freaking out about it. I can't wait to make it worse for him...
Oh, and was there any mention of the Order of the Silver Dream? I was most intigued by them in Mhad's description in "Lords of Oblivion".
Today I found issue 115 in my local gaming shop when I went there to meet with a few fellow DMs before we went off to run our campaigns. So a few of us decided to buy it and check it out (silly store owner won't let us read the magazines without paying...imagine that!). After a few of us went through it I decided that I would share the group’s opinions on the issue.
So what did you think of Raiders of the Black Ice?
ASEO out
I really like issue 115. I'm dissapointed about the Eberron adventure. I don't want that stuff, but I have to live with it, on top of that after reading it I find the adventure lame. Sorry Erik.
I really like Raiders of the Black Ice.
The cool thing that has completely grown on me (in all of two issues) is the DM articles now in Dungeon. They are so awesome. I am really looking forward to seeing them everymonth. I wish that critical threats had hung around (I know . .I know I railed against it), and I'm sorry to see Maps of Mystery gone. Bring those back Erik. They were one, maybe two pages. You can do that. You have that power.
Nice magazine. Dungeon is beautiful. Don't change anything please. Please keep this formatt consistent for the next 5 years. Please. Don't change anything. Please. IT's nice. People all over this board are talking about how much they love the new Dungeon so please leave it alone now.
Thank you.
The new format's the bomb. Having an actual 'direction' for Dungeon (and Dragon) should allow a LOT of productive and directional work to be done.
I'm impressed so far and really glad that you included some DM stuff in Dungeon.
jh
Steel Shadows was incredible, despite the opinions of anti-Eberron readers who find any flaw possible in the setting, without actually giving it a chance.
This was the first adventure I have ever read that presents a real murder mystery feel, and gives multiple clues leading the PCs to the villain.
Keith Baker has once again proved that his writing is on par with authors like Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell. I can't wait for the next Eberron adventure, whether it's written by Keith or someone else.
We don't have any intention of messing with the format any time soon. We're all very happy with the article mix and feel like we've got a really good product.
Really like the format, I've been buying dungeon pretty much since issue 1 and like the new layout. I found it harder to read/use since it went full colour and I didnt like the merge with Polyhedron (despite some of the interesting settings it had) I was also disappointed by the lack of web support since it was bought by Paizo so the new look is VERY welcome!
115 is a good issue and looks great (other than the dreadful cover art - 114 was much better!)Its much easier to read and the interior art work is nice. A few good pages art work are invaluble ( eg i recently ran 'Beast of Burden' from issue 100 and the painting of the colossal Kadtanach really caught the gamers imaginations). I like the workbook sections - I frequently drop little hooks/encounters into the game to add ' a bit of colour', so the ideas in the 'fairs and markets' are really useful.
The adventure mix is fine - I dont mind other settings, I've run Greyhawk campaigns for over 15 yrs and have frequent borrowed Planescape, Realms etc adventures. (Eberron looks fun!) I'm running the adventure path at the moment but its heavily modified so the lack of hooks doesnt apply. What I do like, though is a clear and concise adventure synopsis.
Are there any plans to include Greyhawk articles? ("Living" or otherwise) - the Hardby stuff a few issues back was very good.
Anyway I really like re-vamp and feel Dungeon has definitely improved for the better. Keep up the good work!
The articles in the back are a definite improvement for Dungeon. I now sit down and look forward to reading Dungeon. While Dungeon has greatly improved, I still have 2 big gripes:
#1: The missing Detect Evil, Detect Magic info
#2: The artwork. It's cartoonish. D&D is not a cartoonish game. Look at the intro picture for Raiders of the Black Ice. The sled made out of bones is a cool concept but the actual art makes it look like a McDonald's Happy Meal toy. Look at the picture of the Fortress of Ice. If I show that to my players I'm going to get a big "Oh, OK, we have to go investigate the generic, bluish blob of a building." It's not the least bit evocative.
Now go look at the cover of #100 (the Gith) or #101 (The Slaad Lord). That's good art. If you show those to your players they wet there pants - "Holy crap, we have to fight that?!" That's what Dungeon should be aiming for - art that makes the players say "holy crap".
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#2: The artwork. It's cartoonish. D&D is not a cartoonish game. Look at the intro picture for Raiders of the Black Ice. The sled made out of bones is a cool concept but the actual art makes it look like a McDonald's Happy Meal toy. Look at the picture of the Fortress of Ice. If I show that to my players I'm going to get a big "Oh, OK, we have to go investigate the generic, bluish blob of a building." It's not the least bit evocative.Now go look at the cover of #100 (the Gith) or #101 (The Slaad Lord). That's good art. If you show those to your players they wet there pants - "Holy crap, we have to fight that?!" That's what Dungeon should be aiming for - art that makes the players say "holy crap".
Agreed! My players are hardly scared of cartoony villians.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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I'll third that note on the Artwork... I'm feeling too much of the Eberron pulp vibe in the new format in total. I am not feeling the new Logo... Can someone say bland.
HOWEVER!!! I'm absolutely loving your new iconic party of adventurers... these guys (and gal) are really awesome, especially the Rogue and Paladin! Got any names and any more plans to include the character development skethces in future issues???
#2: The artwork. It's cartoonish. D&D is not a cartoonish game. Look at the intro picture for Raiders of the Black Ice. The sled made out of bones is a cool concept but the actual art makes it look like a McDonald's Happy Meal toy. Look at the picture of the Fortress of Ice. If I show that to my players I'm going to get a big "Oh, OK, we have to go investigate the generic, bluish blob of a building." It's not the least bit evocative.
I have to agree with the artwork comments. It looks way too cartoonish. I like the older artwork where the creatures looked frightening and evil! As DMFTodd mentions above, D&D is not a cartoonish game.
On a positive note though, I have been enjoying the DM articles, particularly the Monte Cook ones.